Musa Paul Hannatu, Umaru Musa, Babayo Mohammed Tukur, Vechit Dashe, Longji Hassan, Yusuf Bello, Safiya Yusuf Idris & Ahmed Jeremiah
Abstract
This study adopted a survey research design to assess practice of malaria prevention strategies among mothers of under-five children in North Central Zone of Nigeria. A sample of 768 mothers of under-five children in North-central zone was selected from a population of 3,641,445, using multi-stage sampling procedures of simple random sampling and proportionate sampling. The instrument used for the study was researchers’ structured questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.833 established using Cronbach Alpha. Out of the 768 copies of questionnaire distributed, 765(99.6%) were valid for analyses. Inferential statistics of one sample t-test was used to test the formulated hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The results revealed that practice of malaria prevention strategies among mothers of under-five children in north-central zone was not significant (p = 0.7). Based on the result, it was concluded that mothers of under-five children do not practice malaria prevention strategies in North-central zone. Based on the conclusion, it was recommended that health educators should conduct periodic symposiums and conferences for mothers of under-five children and women of child-bearing age so as to educate the mothers, as this will help them to understand the need to apply their knowledge into healthy practices for malaria prevention.